With Time
by my paper teeth
Summary: She grew with time. The nine months made their damage. And maybe he would've been able to see it. If he'd stayed / Bade
1. part I

_With Time_

Just a thought that popped into my head, that I thought I might flesh out. Victorious is not mine

_Part I._

She doesn't know who started it first, but they certainly go out with a bang.

The years of connection and adoration and humble bliss combusts across the sky and consumes them. The remnants of their relationship streak across the sky like a shower of cliché glitter and shit.

Well that's how she sees it, a blinding white line, which slowly clouds her vision from the corners. In the end all she can see is red.

His things quickly disappear from their apartment, their silent escape coordinated with her sleeping patterns. She knows that he's not sleeping alone at night. Though Beck Oliver hasn't slept alone since he was fucking sixteen. She hears the edge of a rumour, so now she's haunted by the knowledge, of whom exactly he's sleeping with.

Jade can't handle his quiet resolve and bursts, tearing what's left of the flat apart from the seams, just like the disintegration of her _fucking _mind. Picture frames crack, their glass pain scattering across the lino like a shower of diamonds (_she's sure to walk across it, embedding her crystals in a flush of raw red liquid.) _Bare hands rip pillows, nails scoring into them, spilling out the fluffy contents. Finally the air is filled with the acrid, smoky haze of burnt letters, her Zippo burns anything that even whispers affection.

What's left is a chaos of feathers and glittery specks and finally the contents of her stomach as a wall of nausea suddenly hits her.

All she wants to do is cry her _fucking _eyes out, and she does. She does until her eyes are too numb and raw to make any more salty tears. She wants to rip out that hole thats living in her stomach, so at least another can replace that empty void, another less heart broken space.

She curls in on her self, wanting nothing more than to hibernate for a thousand years, and be woken by a floppy haired prince.

Cat replaces the prince, and the thousand years is reduced to three weeks. Those three weeks though, of periodic bingeing and emptying, unanswered messages or even seeing daylight actually causes Cat's brow to furrow.

To see this virgin expression, after weeks of isolation makes Jade crack into a melancholic smile. It makes her want to giggle, but the laughter doesn't spew out of her; instead she throws up again.

It's Cat who holds back her hair. It's Cat who she hears outside the room whispering to someone on the phone. And it's Cat who is the one who hands her that _stupid fucking_ piece of plastic.

Jade didn't think she'd ever hated the colour pink more than then.

II

She hates herself for it, but she does actually consider an abortion. She's nineteen for fucks sake. She isn't even legal for the drunken conception, so how the hell is she meant to raise a kid?

All she can do in sit in her crappy Volvo (her life is not fucking Twilight) and shake. She tries to calm her self by picking at her fingers and playing the radio, but it's stuck on some local station blaring out mindless chart crap.

Suddenly his voice comes out from nowhere, and it takes her a second to realise that it's just an advert for his new film.

Their magic word floats out from the speakers, and that six lettered plea is all it takes to crack all of her built up bravery and she has a melt down there and then in the car.

She sits in the car for hours, watching women, some just girls, some alone, some not, filter out of the clinic periodically, until the sky suddenly becomes dim and the street lights flicker on.

She gets out at this point and walks, walks as far from the clinic as her legs will permit her. She finds her self eventually in a park, she doesn't recognise any of the surroundings, its just trees and bushes swaying the night's breeze

Eventually she calls Cat, with a simple 'I couldn't. Please come get me'

And she does.

In the car on the way back Jade breaks down for the second time that day, and wails about how screwed she is, how her life is collapsing around her and how all she wants to do is disappear. Cat's frown makes a recurring appearance and all she can do to comfort Jade soothe circles into her shaking back.

When Cat cuts the engine in the driveway, Jade realises that they've aged, quite suddenly, the two of them together, and she's no longer quiet sure where she is in the world.

II

She's only able to keep her secret for so long. Other students just pass off the weight gain as comfort eating, which it partly is. It's at five months, when the university's nurse catches her arm in the hall way and asks _the _question, she drops out and flees California.

She heads to the east coast, Marie had settled in Boston a year back with a new boyfriend, so she reasoned that New York would be a good place to collapse. The city of blazing lights, which, one day she promised would spell out her name.

She still kept contact with Cat, she felt slightly guilty about leaving her (not too guilty though), but Cat had Robbie and certain activities to occupy her.

Along with Cat's calls she had the company of her swelling stomach. As the months passed she watched the curl of flesh on the doctors screen, grow inside her into something more recognisable, less alien looking and more resembling a human being. A tiny human being.

It was that image that she posted to Marie, and it was that image that prompted her to appear on Jade's doorstep and do all a mother could do. Try her damn best to comfort and protect her daughter.

II

She first feels that grating pain at 7pm the day before. She's in the middle of watching reruns of Greys (she knows that channel doesn't broadcast any of _his _ads) when the first one comes. She feigns it off as her kid just deciding to move its attack to her back.

She hardly sleeps, as wave after wave of periodic pain courses though her, and with a grating sigh, she dials Marie's number in the morning and simply says 'its happening'

Her waters break in the cab (Marie says she'll get on the next flight) much to both hers and the drivers delight. She curses loudly and tells him categorically that 'there will be no Alley Travolta thing occurring here today.'

She's shovelled into some examination room, and then after some poking, the waiting room. It's there that she recognizes the familiar face under the fluorescents. The same dreads, the same goofy grin. The same quizzical look at her when she'd done something wrong. She sees the face he pulls when his eyes look her up and down, taking in the nine months of damage. She watches him cross the crowded room to her side and she watches his mouth try and form a coherent sentence. All he manages is 'Beck'.

Apparently André's girlfriend is getting some sort of surgery. He assures her its not facial reconstruction but it's to clear her sinuses, or some other crap. Jade really doesn't give a shit, an opinion delivered though gritted teeth, though is inwardly relived that she now has a hand to hold.

After hours of waiting suddenly, everything happens in a flurry. Her time comes fast; apparently some_ asshole _misjudged a centimetre or two. At first she denies and denies it, 'I'm fine idiot', begging them to wait for Marie. Her cries for her mom transgress into cry for Andre not to leave.

He would then later tell Marie in a low tone, that in the end, it had been _his _name she'd cried out.

Angelica Marie West is born on the 14th of February, at midday exactly, and weighs exactly seven pounds. In a twist of irony, she is also born on exactly the same day as her father.

II

She chooses the name in the afterglow, when the sun is setting, and the echo of the pain has transformed itself into a strangely restless drowsiness.

She feels like something off CSI, a mauled corpse that's been torn up from the inside (she counts seven stitches.)

She doesn't have one of those moments where she instantly knows her child's name. For hours, just the word 'she' bounces round her mind.

_I have a little girl. _We_ have a little girl. _

Jade couldn't help but breath a sigh of relief, when one of those surgical masks exclaims 'it's a girl'. If it had been a boy she would have been resigned to a fate of staring at his face for the rest of her life. That thought sticks in her mind, and she hates herself to her core for even beginning to think it.

The sun warms her daughters face with a peachy glow, glancing off her round cheeks and unopened eyes. Even then, at a few hours old, so much of him is echoed in her mouth, face and hair; her little lip biting and restless tossing. Jade curses her docile genes for letting him be the dominant one. Though she'd be lying if she said she wished there was no trace of him at all.

Jade decides, that her teen pregnancy child (if you call 19 adolescent) is a cliché. In no way would she name her anything double barrelled or misspelled. The word 'angelic' floats into her mind, as she lies there contently watching her, and she settles on Angelica.

Marie is her middle name, as she feels she owes it to her mom for at least not drinking or smoking around the two of them, and getting all hyped up about 'Jelly' with toys she can't afford and gabble about being either 'grammy or g-mama'.

She wondered where he was. Out there celebrating his own birthday, no doubt in amongst a shower of heart themed confectionary and a pretty girl on his arm (she knows exactly which pretty girl). She wondered if he even knew, even had a tiny tinge that told him something had changed in the world. That there were now two voices crying out his name, one of them not knowing he was the one she was crying for, not knowing she shared his genes.

She stayed up long into the night, sitting there in her small vacant room, the scratchy hospital sheets wrapped around her. She lay there completely absorbed by the tiny face across from her. She watched her daughter's scrunched up face, her tiny mouth quivering with the beginnings of a cry, and reached out a hand to clutch her daughter's tiny one.

Jade felt a wave of calm. If she could just pause time at this exact moment, then maybe, just maybe, they'd be okay.


	2. part II

It would seem that quite a lot of you liked the first part, hehe which is lovely. Thus the story continues, and hopefully this pleases y'all too. Hopefully.

I would like to say though that a third part might not be up for some time. Chaos has descended upon my house, so I've had to move in with my grandma, who still lives in the 20th century, without technology, so I'll have to resort to pen and paper, old school yo.

II

_Part II._

From the word go, Angelica had a personality of her own.

As her daughter goes through the motions of learning to walk and talk and generally cause chaos everywhere, Jade couldn't help feeling the swellings of pride.

Angelica lives up to her name. She's a quiet child, calm and untroubled. She loves to dance and knows the words to the entirety of Mulan. Jelly's favourite food is chicken nuggets and she slavers ketchup on _everything. _She puts her toys in jelly, earning her the nickname and loves the colour orange. Her dark brown hair tickles her non-existent hips and is brushed constantly by fingers and combs, so that it flows like a swath of silk.

Freckles scatters her face like constellations, blow across her button nose and full cheeks and her eyes are warm and bright and utterly vivacious.

She never asks about her dad, the question was answered long ago with a '_you have a father, but not a daddy_.' She doesn't know though, that everything she does, each finger painting she makes or golden star sticker she gets, makes her mommy's hand reach that little bit closer to the phone, to try and reach someone unknown to her. What Angelica doesn't know is that whenever Jade looks at her all she can think is '_look what we made_.'

She goes with Jade to each and every one of her auditions, and even gets to feature, abet in the background of a soap commercial. When Jade's career, out of some miracle alights to Broadway, she sits beside all the dancers and learns the moves and graces with ease.

And on each of her birthdays, the two of them, Jade and Angelica, sit on the roof of their apartment block and eat red velvet cup cakes, and drink cans of lemonade, whilst wishing upon stars.

II

She visits them once, Cat and Robbie.

Jelly had just turned five in a flurry of pink frosting and heart shaped confetti.

The two of them had holed themselves up on Long Island, and bought into the whole kitschy lifestyle. A lemon coloured kitchen and potted houseplants; two kids and a dog to boot. They'd boarded the baby train early too, with a three year old chatter box called Katy, and a thumbing sucking baby called Ben.

She'd sat there in that kitchen, surrounded by finger painted drawings and mugs entitling Robbie as the best dad in the world. She'd clutched one of those mugs so tightly that her knuckles went white as Cat rolled on and on about everything that had happened in the past five years. She was training to become an elementary school teacher, which of course made complete sense; Cat was still on the same emotional level as many of her pupils.

She would occasionally nod and inject into the conversation a casual sigh, or a light hearted 'no way', but she wasn't that sincere. She tried to be, honestly, but the setting she was trapped in, the woman she was now talking to, everything just made her sad: it reminded her of the type relationship she just didn't, couldn't have.

Jade and Angelica stayed for supper (a begrudged agreement from one.) The novelty of it, she thought, it was almost reminiscent of high school; all of them crowed round one tiny table, their children standing in for those three missing persons.

The girls eventually tired themselves out, dancing around the small living room. Twirling and twirling around in the contents of Katy's dressing up box, whilst singing along to Grease. Cat of course couldn't help her self but join them, dressing up as some princess dragon hybrid, as Ben curled up on Jade's lap and dozed.

She had to carry Jelly to the car, her tiny face tucked in under her neck and Jade could feel her warm breath on her jaw, and the light fist balling up her top.

After the long drive, she lay Jelly down softly in her bed, and pulled the pink covers up around her; tucking her in with a kiss to the forehead.

When she later collapsed onto the sofa, Jade couldn't understand why in hell they'd settled down so early. But hours after their goodbyes, she realised; it was simple. It was because they were comfortable. Because they were happy. Because Jade realised, they'd found a way to pause time.

II

She meets a boy called Daniel (not that Daniel) and somehow they hit a balance.

He's a struggling musician and on their first date in some musty little coffee shop he straight off the bat tells her he's a recovering drug addict.

'How recovered'

'Six years'

'So did you really needed to tell me that?'

She likes how he cuts the crap and she admires that. He also doesn't mind how blunt and sharp and prickly she can be, and somehow she finds her self happy, gleeful almost for once. She finds that she enjoys the adult company, she relishes at the press of flesh, rough kisses and hastened words whispered in her ear; to be able to finally share a bed and it not be a throw away fling. She knows it feels oh so familiar, but its a bitter sweet emotion. She wants the chase; the courtship, but with every kiss his taste appears.

She introduces him to Angelica after a couple of months. He wanted to meet her sooner, but Jade wanted to see how steadfast their relationship is. She just decides to go with it, fall face first and not stop for a second to think; that to let Danny in, she has to push _him _out.

He's an early bird, which suits Angelica's routine, so Jade gets to start each morning with a different show tune. Daniel teaches Jelly a few chords on the guitar and how to hold a note, her tiny lungs can't quite yet, but Jade is pretty sure she'll be able to one day, it's in her genes.

She supposes he fancies him self as some sort of Joseph figure, a father to a child that's not his. It makes her feel slightly uncomfortable, how he's suddenly come very close. He's never, ever abusive, apart from to himself. He's self-deprecating, but also she realises, so very self-absorbed.

She feels like they're two clashing black holes, threatening to consume the other, not really caring about the constellations between them, how many wishes they'll be blighting out.

Despite this she trusts him. He's there for both of them, supporting Jade as she hits the ground running with her career. It's probably the reason that she sits him down, ten months into the relationship and quietly tells him who Angelica's dad really is. She has him swear on his life he'll never tell, and he does.

Though a week later, Jade finds to her regret, that she forgot to get him to promise never to leave her.

II

The reviewers love her first venture into film. But they don't just love her; they worship her. Words like 'fresh' and 'abundant talent' litter the pages she sticks to their fridge, words that flit across her mind and make her twinkle inside.

When the news of a nomination come in, she twirls Jelly around the room in a flurry of loud giggles and swishing hair.

They gorge themselves on Happy Meals and strawberries and icing sugar all laid out on napkins on the roof.

They lie on their backs, Angelica pressed under Jade's arms, even though New York's moist haze is making them both uncomfortable.

It's cliché, she knows, but for her Angelica, she embraces this sweet moment of having everything and nothing both in her hands, at the same time.

In her daughter's contented murmurs of a story about angels Jade feels, for a small slip of time, complete.

A sugar rush soon follows and they dance around the roof manically, calling to the constellations, serenading to the heavens,

For a moment, Jade loses her self and imagines his face and wants to wildly punch out, lash out at the man who left and scream 'why' and 'look, you shouldn't have left.'

All of this pent up anger spills out of her as tears, and instead of a fist, all she can do is secretly wipe away the salty tracks and return to her twirling daughter.

II

After three films she takes a break from the flash of bulbs and the pages of scripts. They get a dog, whom Angelic ironically wants to call Beck, after seeing a film with him in it at the weekend.

It's so fucking cruel. Fate or Karma or some other mystic shit just loves to kick her up the ass.

She doubts that Angelica even made the connection in that 2 hours, that those big brown eyes she was staring up at on the silver screen were identical to hers. Or that her incessant hair toying and how she constantly looks upwards with a furrowed brow, was handed to her on a genetic platter by him.

When she chirrups 'Lets call him Beck, like that man in the movie.' Jade almost simultaneously combusts-cries-throws-up, almost. Instead she tactfully guides her daughter away from the name.

'Beck not very sweet, sounds kinda rough doesn't it.'

'But puppy has the same fur as him, look its all floppy, like floppy chocolate.' The likeness Angelica has found inspires a peel of laughter, which Jade can't help but melt at.

Jade delights when later that day Angelic relents and settles on the name Oliver. Prince Oliver III, of course. Jade feels the malicious tickle of irony, but at least she knows she won't fall for this Oliver.

II

The press have a field day when they find out she's a single mom.

She surprised its taken this bloody long for the news to break, as she doesn't exactly shepard Jelly about under a coat.

She took Angelica to the zoo for her seventh birthday. She can feel the glare of the lens, unsubtly hiding behind the bushes. There's so many fucking cameras that she wouldn't be surprised if one of those fat lions that Angelica loved pulled one out.

Their pictures are splashed out on page seven of countless magazines. The one she does read with distaste somehow came to the conclusion that Angelica's dad must have been a high school boyfriend, one that in a later press conference, Jade refuses to name.

The even more sickening thing is that Jade's story shared a double with news of _his _birthday celebration.

Maybe, Jade reasoned, maybe if any of the readers had even an ounce of a brain, they might realise the stark resemblance between father and daughter.

And maybe, if Jade squinted too, she might make out that his apparent 'booze cruise', was less of a celebration and rather a bid to drown his sorrows.

II

After six years he breaks the silence, with a simple 'I need to see her' over the phone.

Jade hangs up before he can begin to address her and she suddenly feels sick as time comes crashing around her.


	3. part III

_It's always a horrible feeling to come home and find you're kitchen completely smashed up. Its also a funny feeling, seeing as now I can't eat my crème brulee, because some idiot decided to sell our oven out of spite. So y'all should expect a lot of angst, because I get slightly twitchy went I don't get my weekly fix o'fat._

_Sorry for not updating sooner, but well you see, many a time I'm struck by a midnight inspiration. And of course I scribble it down as fast as my delirious mind could handle. But then I kinda hid all my notes. Haha then forgot were I put them. They were in my pillow…_

_Okay last part. and it's a long bugger._

Part III

'_I need to see her.'_

The feelings that erupt with that one sentence sweep Jade completely off balance. The turmoil of her feelings, the sheer volume of the blood pounding in her ears gives her cold feet and she slams the phone down so hard she hears a sickening sound of plastic on plastic. Cracking. Like her _bloody fucking _sanity.

It takes her a while to realise that blood is dripping all over the lino floor, and she finds that one of her fingers is blossoming crimson.

Numb, she's completely numb, from head to toe, from heart to brain. Even down to her stupid little crushed pinkie finger.

She caught it in the collision of phone and cradle and the nail's now spilt apart in a gaping crack. She doesn't react, doesn't know how to react.

She's just completely lost, standing there, the 'drip drip' of pooling blood reverberating round her mind with a sickening splatter.

II

He calls again. And again, and again.

He's relentless, and she hates it but loves it at the same time. He's chasing her again. _He's_ chasing _her_. And as warped as it is, she loves that she's no longer the one saying please.

Eventually she picks up, though not before teasing out the time.

'I need to see her.' Is all he starts with, no time for jovialities. He's cutting the crap now.

It's been years since she'd heard that voice and already it's too familiar. Already she's filled with that rush of nerves, the chorus of butterflies alight; dancing in her throat. She's engulfed in the taste of cotton candy and sweet lemonade. Hot nights and cool sheets, salt stiffed hair and the unnaturally, garish glow from the Ferris wheel's fluorescents. She can feel the smell of leather and aloe and hot, dry days. She's swallowed by a wave of Beck; for just a second too long she's in that stupid, fucking emotional limbo that seems to now be her default mental status. It takes a repetition of his statement to bring her back.

'Jade' his voice is soft now, pressing and twanging at her heartstrings.

'I heard her name was Angelica'

'_Jelly_' she corrects with out thinking. She realises that she's left out the sting. She'd never be able to say her baby's name with contempt. _Their baby's name._

There's a pause and she thinks for a second that he's hung up, already got all he needs.

'I'd like to meet her'

'Like? Screw you'

'Please Jade, please just don't be diffi-'

'Don't you dare. I can be as _fucking _difficult as I want.' She revels now in the cutting word, _oh this feels good_, she wants to dig into him, and she does, loving how the word 'fucking' rolls off her tongue. Oh here's her control.

There's another pause and this time she's sure he's gone. Shit. She's pushed him away yet again.

'Please'

_That _word. The word that fells all of the walls of her heart. She glances over to Angelica contently playing with the dog, showering him in glitter and kisses.

'I just. I just can't Beck. Not you. Not now' and with that she hangs up, taking caution this time not to damage any more digits.

'Who was that?' The innocent question floats in through the open door.

Her mouth makes a silent 'o' searching for an answer'

'Just a silly salesman'

'You hear that Oli? Don't talk to silly salesmen. They're eviiilll.' Jade smiles at the pout Angelica pulls for the dog, shaking her head for emphasis on the moral, holding one of the pups paws in a shake.

Jade could have told her quiet bluntly that it was her dad, but she reasoned that 'father' was probably on an emotional par with a salesman.

II

Jade's finds that her daughter's distaste of phone salesmen doesn't stop her from answering the phone.

She wakes to the sound of her girl's dulcet tones in the next room, murmuring something incomprehensible. She finds her lying in her pink pyjamas cradling the phone to her cheek like something dear.

'Yeah, I love butterflies, they're so pretty.' 'No way? A blue one, luuucky.' Angelica giggles at the reply.

'Oh just a doggie. Yeah he's right next to me. His name is Oli. Yep Oliver. No way? That's you're name too?'

Jade feels the panic rising. Shit.

'Honey who's that' she says in a strained voice.

'Its daddy.'

'Daddy?' She can literally feel the butterflies' wings pressing for escape at the back of her throat.

'Yeeep. And we're talking about butterflies' Angelica giggles as she motions wings with her hands, phone included in the gesture until a voice can be heard from it and Angelica quickly replaces it to her ear. It's pretty much incomprehensible to Jade as to how her daughter picked up the idea of a father in a single phone call. She then realises, this is probably not the first one. _Damn you Beck Oliver, damn you to hell._

The emotional gravity of the situation doesn't seem to have dawned on Jelly and she continues converse with that previously absent figure.

'Oh mummy's here. Yep if you want to. Heere we go.' She elongates her last words as she lifts up from her previous position on the floor to pass the phone to Jade.

'Who the hell is this?' she knows, but still she asks.

Beck's voice replies, but she doesn't even hear what it is he's saying before she hangs up.

'Fuck' is all she manages. It's the first time she's sworn in front of Jelly and she can see the effect it has on her daughter's brow. She excuses her self from the room with a quiet 'Sorry baby, bad, bad word' and a feeble mock wrist slapping.

II

After weeks of pushing Jade gives into Beck's requests out of shear exhaustion, and the realisation that she is in fact depriving Jelly. They resolve to meet in the red room of some fancy hotel. They could have met in McDonalds for all she cared, but she realises that Beck wants to put on a show; the illusion of grandeur and pomp. She just nods along, agreeing; submitting herself to a forlorn fate.

The look on Beck's face makes up for it.

She sees his face as he lays eyes on Angelica. His expression is a hybrid mix of sheer horror and a dash of elation.

When his eyes catch the gaze of his daughter's identical pair, he blanches. Jade finds it hard to keep a lid on her misery too, seeing as the boy who successfully broke her heart and screwed her over is standing not two foot away from her. She needs to pinch herself. And she does relishing at the pain of reality.

Their greeting's all wide eyes and unsure footing, gazes that don't quite meet and a stumble of words. Angelica though, is their saviour; playing the bold party; dipping her foot into their uncharted waters first, with a bright 'Soo, you're my daddy?'

Beck is all that she remembers him to be; collected and calm. His worry dries up in an instant to answer Jelly's question, leaving Jade behind in the awkward wasteland of her own jarred mind.

She just follows like a puppet, father and daughter collectively pulling her strings, guiding her to some overly lit table at the centre of the room. Jade West, Beck Oliver and their love child on parade for the entire world to see.

The room is filled with the buzzing noise of polite conversation and the tinkling sound of piano keys. A giant multi-tiered chandelier looms overhead, slightly swaying with the movement of human activity and Jade likens it to a pendulum, dancing with the beat of time. She wishes that it would fall, fall straight on top of her and cut her off from existence, cut her off from this sickeningly sweet reunion that is going oh so very well.

He asks everything about Angelica and she reacts well to the quick fire session of questions, which finally softens to warm conversation. Its like they've never been apart, two kindred spirits, two old souls together at last.

Jade feels slightly alienated in amongst their laughter and occasionally Beck catches her eye and stops. Jade engages lightly in the conversation, but prefers to watch her daughters face as it goes trough the swing of introduction and finally acceptance. She wonders if Jelly's ever prayed to have a dad. She's never written him on her Christmas list, so perhaps at some dark hour or upon a star or an eyelash she's prayed for a father, and is now utterly overjoyed to have Beck, the man she's grown up watching on the silver screen. The man that was distanced by planets, solar systems and so many stars but is now finally in reach.

II

As they motion to part ways, Beck stooping down to Angelica's level to say goodbye Jelly,_ 'it was a pleasure meeting you' _Jade feels like wrenching her away and running for the hills. Of course after all these years, he's the one with the ability to swoop down from the sky and make everything suddenly all right and happy clappy. Why can't she have that?

As they leave she looks over her shoulder to see him still watching them from the bar. She's sure the wistful gaze is directed at Angelica, but a small part of her wishes it was at her.

His gaze is redirected to the flash of long hair and suddenly he's entangled in the arms of Tori _mother fucking_ Vega.

Jade leaves with the taste of disappointment and coffee and doesn't look back as she leaves.

II

She resents it, but these meetings become more and more regular (they finally do get to go to McDonalds)

He hasn't won her forgiveness yet, but each and every time they meet, she feels herself forgetting, just for small slips of time. Small, smiling slips of time.

But every time they're together (for Jelly's sake she says) she feels herself falling again. Descending into that emotional limbo. Slipping deeper and deeper back into his charm. Sure, she'll pretend not to and will treat him with the same hostility that she reserves for the general public. But inside she cracking; every time he nudges her and smiles or calls her pretty, little parts of her resolve break away. She'll still punch him in the arm, but its always hurting her more than its hurting him. She a masochist and hates her self for it, _but still loves the feel of their skin contacting._

Secretly she finds herself wishing upon stars, and chicken bones and eyelashes, because she finds, to her _fucking _horror that; she, Jade West is falling in love with Beck Oliver. Again.

And all she wishes for is a way to pause time.

II

She finds that Diazepam does the trick.

Because loving again Beck Oliver hurts. It fucking stings.

The little white pills sing to her now, her heart entitles it as a calling; her brain tells her it's an addiction. The rush of chemicals floods her body into a high of colour, sloshing round her brain; filling her eyes and ears with a rainbow of hues. The storm of her mind hits the rays of sun that trickle out of the Diazepam and they refract together to make something lovely. Lovely; but fleeting. When the illuminations dim she's left with the hallow hurt again, that's when she needs her next fix.

The high she gets makes smiling a lot easier, and she finds, each time she submerges her self into one; they become a little less fake.

She finds herself digging her nails hard into her palm every time they're together, every time she catches herself smiling and him smiling too. Every time Beck edges his way into her heart, she melts into chemicals.

The little beads of blood grin in the crescent shaped groves on her palm and she thinks they're mocking her. _But they are aren't they? Everyone else is allowed to be happy, just not her of course._

She hates it that he can just appear on scene and suddenly they're playing happy families. She doesn't even know if he's sincere. Sure he's proved that to Angelica with his complete and utter adoration, but to Jade he just acts with hesitation and formalities.

She doesn't bother answering any of his calls, because the only time she can tolerate _him _is in the presence of her daughter.

She finds with the painkillers, that every time she smiles. Every time the nails dig involuntarily, the pain isn't present.

And by some miracle her life begins to sort of work.

II

She's months into her addiction and somehow the sleeping body of Beck enters the corner of her eye. Somehow he slipped past in the haze of her confusion and has taken up residence on the sofa. Somehow all she can feel is contempt (she's almost proud of Vega for throwing him out) the emotion unfurling up inside her like an ugly haze of smoke.

Everything becomes a blur. The only things in focus in the swirling masses of her mind are Angelica's face and the screen of her phone, displaying '6 missed calls'.

Jade never stumbles, never lets on. She's an award-winning actress for Christ's sake; of course she could pull off sanity, like fucking a professional.

Everything melts into the next, faces meld together in her newfound warped reality. It could be called an adverse effect of the painkillers. But Jade just calls it her sanctuary.

II

Jelly says one night that she 'would like to have pineapple pizza very, very much.' She had Jade at please, but the cherries on top make a nice addition.

Jade volunteers to go, _but you can have it delivered. I need the air._

She gets in the car, the kiss Angelica had given her, still tingling on her cheek, acts as her anchor. She pops a few serenading pills and twists the key in the ignition, comforted at the purr of the heated engine.

The city's pretty at night, but the smog and light pollution mask out the stars with a smudged hand. Ever so often though, cracks in the clouds let through a few tiny stars, twinkling, as they're light's refracted by rain and particulates.

Its like her brain has a camera's shutter on it. The streetlights are like lurid squiggly worms, their glow dragging across her vision, and she uncharacteristically giggles at the sight of her burnt retains as she feels the high rising up inside her. The green worms turn red but she keeps on driving. _Shit they're angry at me. _

The worms and the world spin around and around and around her, suddenly exploding in a crescendo of twisting metal and breaking bones. With that Jade's world turns black with a final, sickening crack.

II

She doesn't cry, she doesn't scream. There was no _bloody _time for that. Her collapsed lung fills with blood, reducing her cry to a gurgle. Seven broken ribs, like splintered fingers, cradle her internal bleeding as it pools inside her crushed cavities.

The overhead mirror smacks into her skull, splintering her mind into unconsciousness. The glass from the windshield splatters her face with tiny screaming cuts (like a thousand bloody kisses.)

When the ambulance finds her car, twisted round another, her limp body compressed, the blood has congealed in her hair, plastering it to her dislocated shoulders, and dyeing is a bloody hue.

For the second time that night she leaves the world, this time as a bloody smear. She slips away as the red and blue lights caress her broken face, and she's cut out from the crumpled car.

She feels the pound of the defibrillation pads against her chest, but decides its just best to ignore them.

II

Ugly strips of fluorescent float into her vision, and though everything begins as swimming blurs, a sickening lurch causes the shapes to begin to sharpen. Beck's face swarms into view, in and out as he paces the room.

'What the fuck were you thinking' He said fuck.

The word sticks in her head, ugly and harsh. He said fuck. The revelation is actually shocking. He never says _fuck_.

She realises she can't speak; she has some bloody tube down her throat, choking her reply.

Some faceless nurse smiles as she removes it, calling her _sweetie _as she pushes more sedatives into her IV.

_Jelly. Diazepam. Shit _cross her mind in a burning comet streak and every thing fades away.

II

It's when the lights are low and she can hear the slow drag of the road quietly in the background that she whispers across to Beck.

'Nothing, that its, I just wasn't thinking of anything.'

'You could have died' 'Died. How could you be so sel-' He's suddenly gesticulating widely, his hands entangling themselves in his hair and he looks like he's near to ripping it all out.

'Me? Selfish?' She feels the heat not only rising in her hoarse words but also her face, her eyes prickle with stubborn tears. She wants to scream so fucking badly.

But instead of screaming her words pick up pace and dribble out of her mouth, and all she can think 'oh screw it.'

It just pours out of her. Everything that's been building up for the past seven years burst off her lips. The frustration of raising their child, _their child_ alone. How she wants to punch him so he can feel what its like to have his heart ripped out. For missing Jelly's first steps, first words, first smiles. The harrowing feeling of sleeping alone; unloved, discarded and used.

How she still has a taste of him in her mouth, and she didn't know whether to spit it out or savour it. How whenever she would shout or scream she still expects him to be there, to silence her with a kiss. And how empty her lips feel when he doesn't.

How she has to sugar coat _everything _now, because she's a bitch, and Hollywood doesn't like bitches, _but he did._

How she wants him to be there. To really be there, not just for Jelly, but also for _her._ Like they used to be, in his old RV, curled around each other, promises and dreamed realities whispered in hushed tones.

And somehow from some sickening monstrosity, she is still fucking in lo-

The nurse enters on the pretence that her morphine has to be upped and Jade can't, isn't allowed to finish

He sits down and for once he's the one that looks deflated, _at last._

_Victorious _is her final thought before the sedative claims her.

II

She dreams about him.

And when she surfaces in the dim lights, he's still there, the crease in his brow as present as he is.

He promised that he wouldn't leave her side, and he doesn't. He curls his fingers into hers, and they lie there in the darkness, each awake and aware.

'I want to get better at this.'

'Better at what?' He props his head up drowsily and his face the same one she'd wake up to all those years ago. The face that'd kiss away the sleep and she'd call a _pansy._

'Loving you.'

II

She'd love it if they could just fuck there and then in the bed. They could forgive each other silently between the rough sheets and together they could wallow in her pathetic words, melting into one.

She could comb her fingers through his hair and he could whisper again in her ear how much he missed her, again and again.

She'd love to but someone had catheterized her, and stitches covered her body threatening to bleed out. It would be awkward, messy and emotionally rash_; the story of her life_.

By the time she's thought all this, Beck has already risen from the chair and is poised at the door.

'You want a coffee?' It's a statement, not a question. He's gone again, slipping out the door silently like smoke and she's left, deflated and alone between _those rough sheets_. All she has to hold onto is her throbbing IV and the stinging wounds of her face and heart.

II

She spends an extra week in the hospital detoxing, flushing the Diazepam from her bones in the cold sweat of a chemical coma. They then sentence her to an intensive course of therapy and she weakly complies; _no corner cutting for little Jade West and her broken face._

As soon as she's discharged from rehab she runs. Like all those years ago, she flees her home again, this time Jelly in hand and not in utro. Though not before one, final crashing rendition.

She smashes up the contents of her house; the trail of destruction missing only the few hastily packed boxes by the door.

Jelly joins her in the creation of chaos and they make it a game. Who can best screw their worldly possessions?

They make a mural on the wall, finger painting their names at the bottom corner and filling the other three walls with pictures of mommy and Jelly and daddy (who _accidentally_ gets a dripping purple mess across his face.) Oli joins in too, his paws collecting up the multicoloured paints and running them through the house.

Together they rip up all the pillows with scissors then hands then teeth, and pour the feather across the floor, a wave of soft, slowly falling, only to be chucked back up into the air with their twirling motions.

Everything is displaced. All their material shit is strewn across the floor and they together laugh at the petty commercialism they've bought into (well Jade laughs at it, Jelly laughs because her beds now upside down.) They scream and jump around

They finish in the kitchen, as the large glass panes lets through the last dregs of summer sunlight. Food is scattered everywhere. Cupcakes are mashed upon the floor and the fluids of a melon are dashed across a wall like a vicious crime of passion.

They lie there in the fading remnants of the bruise-deepened sky, exhaustion tightening its hold up on them. Together they heap up all their blankets and intact pillows and fall into comfort with a '_humpf_''.

When Jelly asks where they'll go next, her eyelids fluttering with sleep and the edge of a yawn in her voice Jade answers 'Forwards' because that's all she can think of.

The next morning they leave the mess that Jade made of their lives behind and run.

Run, far, far away.

II

He finds her.

He finds her in Seattle of all the places in the world.

He finds her in the deflating light, through the streaks of gold and red as the warm, late summer rain settles in.

He stands there soaked to the bone and she stands in the door, his dry comfort.

'Do you love me again?' She asks through salty tears. She doesn't know where the they'd come from, (oh but she knew they'd been there for a very, very long time; the tracks tattooed into her cheeks_.) Too long._

'Who said I stopped?' he whispers against her cheek as he kisses the tears away. _Kiss they all away._

She has to pinch her self to check that he actually just said that. He catches the movement and laughing, kisses her harder, clutching her like she might suddenly dissolve.

She wants to blame every inch of him, but ends up melting, pouring her arms around him and sinking in. For now it's enough. For now and forever she'll cling onto him with every fibre of her being.

Jade West makes a wish upon the star standing in front of her. Wishing with all her might that she'll get her happy ending.

But she knows it'll come with time.

II

_Hopefully that was satisfactory? I hope so. I really do owe it all of you for you're lovely words of encouragement, oh how they are cherished._

_So even if you hated it, or adored it or weren't really that touched by it, leave a review or pm me. Constructive criticism is like a kiss to me._

_I'm thinking of writing a set of alphabetical one-shots next, so if y'all have any ideas for the letter H onwards that would be trés lovel_y.


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